I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a lawn edger and more specifically, to a curb support roller for a vertical drive shaft lawn edger.
II. Description of the Related Art
The present invention contemplates a new and improved curb support roller for a vertical drive shaft lawn edger that is simple in design, effective in use, and overcomes the foregoing difficulties and others while providing better and more advantageous overall results.
Lawn edgers are widely used in maintaining the appearance of lawns. They are primarily used to trim grass along the edges of driveways and curbs.
The prior art edgers typically use a horizontal output shaft that rotates a vertical cutting blade. Through the use of a V-belt, a vertical drive pulley rotates a vertical driven pulley. The driven pulley rotates a vertical edger blade, which has a horizontal rotational axis. A vertical drive shaft engine has a horizontal driven pulley with its rotational axis vertical. In this arrangement, the V-belt is twisted to translate the vertical rotation of the drive pulley to the horizontal rotation of the driven pulley. The horizontal drive shaft engine configuration is preferred since the pulleys and the blade are oriented uniformly. However, lawn edgers with a horizontal drive shaft engine are relatively expensive. Lawn mower engines utilize a vertical drive shaft. Because engines or lawn mowers are manufactured in greater numbers, they are less expensive. Therefore, lawn edgers utilizing a vertical drive shaft are desirable, for other reasons in addition to their low cost.
Prior art lawn edgers typically use a three or four-wheeled system to provide stability. However, when using the prior art edgers on inclined surfaces, such as a curbs, the edgers tend to be hard to control. In these conventional edgers some sort of shock means or wheel extension is used to provide stability.
In the typical lawn edger configuration, the rotational axes of the front wheels are substantially in line with the rotational axis of the cutting blade. Prior art vertical drive shaft lawn edgers have the front wheels beside the cutting means. This configuration leads to the edger being unstable while edging along a curb. In operation, the edging or cutting means follows a path along the edge of the grass. Meanwhile, the front wheels follow a path parallel to this grass edge path. Typically, the front wheels do not contact the ground, as the rear wheels and edging means support the edger. While this arrangement has been adequate, the inventive arrangement is believed to offer advantages.